


Weird

by Helsabot



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Romantic Friendship, g-g-g-g-ghosts?!?, pillow walls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 11:36:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12530432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helsabot/pseuds/Helsabot
Summary: One night, the stack of pillows between them becomes one stack too many.“Let me— let me hit you with a thought. A theory.”“A postulation?”“Sure. Let me postulate at you.”“Postulate away, baby.”





	Weird

**Author's Note:**

> I am a grown ass woman writing a Buzzfeed fanfic Dear God

One night, the stack of pillows between them becomes one stack too many.

“Let me— let me hit you with a thought. A theory.”

“A postulation?”

“Sure. Let me postulate at you.”

“Postulate away, baby.”

Ryan takes a large breath, and exhales:

“If it weren’t for the totally ingrained homophobia society’s beaten into us, we wouldn’t be building a pillow wall right now.”

Shane is quiet for a beat. Then, “Okay.”

Ryan shoots him a glance. “Like, I think it’s completely ridiculous that we do this. And then sleep as close to the edge of the bed as possible, on top of it. And only one of us is allowed to get under the covers!”

Shane’s eyebrows knit in genuine confusion. “I’ve never said that. That’s not a rule.”

“It’s unspoken, dude. But, like, what’s gonna happen? If my arm bumps your elbow in my sleep, is it gonna make us less manly? Is it gonna turn us gay?”

“It’ll turn my _el_ -bow gay!”

Ryan stifles a laugh; it’s the way Shane says “elbow” that gets him. The “el” climbs like a single rollercoaster car and dips quickly and neatly into the “bow”. Shane says his “b”s funny. Shane says lots of things funny. Sometimes the actual words aren’t funny at all, it’s just the way they come out.

Ryan pulls his grin together like drapes against sunlight. “I’m serious.”

Shane shrugs. “Then let’s not build the pillow wall.”

“Yeah? And you’re not gonna be weird about it?”

“Why would I be weird about it?”

“Well I think it’s weird that we build the fucking pillow wall in the first place, and— and somehow the thought of _not_ building it is even weirder! And we’re _talking_ about it, dude, and _that’s_ making it weird!”

Shane shrugs again, just one shoulder this time. “ _You’re_ talking about it. But s’not weird.”

Ryan barks a frustrated laugh. “So you’re telling me, if we just forgo the pillow wall tonight, and we _don’t_ sleep on the edge of the bed like it’s a fucking _tightrope_ — you’re telling me you wouldn’t be weirded out.”

“ _Why_ would that be weird?” It’s Shane’s turn to laugh somewhat humorlessly, a plosive little sound. “Why is it so hard for you to believe that I would _not_ find that weird? I don’t even know why we build the P.W., I just do it ‘cause you do it!”

“I only do it because _you_ do!”

“Well I didn’t start it!”

“Neither did _I!_ ”

“Well _somebody_ started it.” Shane’s face goes slightly slack, like something subtle has occurred to him. He looks toward the open door of the bathroom that a woman died in seventy years ago. In a film noir detective voice, he calls out: “ _Elizabeth? Elizabeth, did_ you _start the P.W.?_ ”

“God, you're an asshole. Okay, fine. So we won’t build the P.W., and you won’t be weirded out when I sleep up against you.”

Shane’s eyes widen. “Wait, what?”

Ryan didn’t think his eyes could even go that wide.

“ _See?!_ You’re weirded out!”

“We were just discussing the P.W.! Since when are you ‘ _sleeping up against_ ’ me?”

“Since I stepped inside this fucking hotel and got all the unholy shit scared out of me, that’s since when! You— I— see, this is why—” Ryan gives up on his words and sighs, exasperated. He jabs an index finger downwards, at the mattress. “I _knew_ you would be weirded out!”

“Well you didn’t have to phrase it like _that_ ,” Shane says. “ _‘Sleep up against’_? That’s weird, man.”

“Well how else am I supposed to put it?!”

“Gee, I dunno, you could call it _cuddling_?”

“You’d prefer it if I told you I wanted to cuddle with you.”

“ _Yeah_ , actually. That’s a lot less weird than _sleeping up against_ me. That makes you sound… parasitic. That makes you sound like a… like you’re one of those, uh, snails. That you see on the glass in fishtanks at pet stores.”

Ryan can’t help it: he laughs at the image. Shane’s laughing too.

“That’s what I am to you? A pet store snail?”

“Sure. You’re lookin’ at all the, uh, the cute lil’ goldfish, swimmin’ around, doin’ their thing, and then you just see the undercarriage of this _snail_ , and you’re thinking… who are _you_? What are _you_ doing here?”

Ryan wheezes. “Undercarriage?”

“Snail undercarriage. Snundercarriage.”

“So I’m… an aquatic snail who… shows up uninvited to parties? And exposes himself?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. The metaphor got away from me.”

“ _Yeah_ it did.”

“But you’re a snail.”

“Okay. Fine. I’m a snail. Those snails are symbiotic, by the way, not parasitic. Are we agreed? No P.W. tonight?”

Shane shakes his head once, left-to-right, decisive. “No P.W. The P.W. is dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as disco.”

“And the other thing?”

Shane pats the space beside him.

“Come ‘ere, buddy.”

Ryan waits for the punchline. It doesn’t come.

“Really?”

“I promise it won’t be weird.”

They stare at each other for a good handful of seconds.

“It might be a little weird,” admits Ryan.

Shane nods. “It might be a little weird.”

They laugh, and Ryan settles down beside his friend.

And it isn’t even a _little_ weird.


End file.
